Feasibility Study of a Digital Platform for the delivery of UK ... - BFI

UK FILM COUNCIL
has only recently begun to leverage its considerable assets to take advantage of its presence in the entertainment market. In May 2004,
Howard Stringer, vice chairman and COO of Sony, announced the launch of the Sony Connect music download service (Sony’s web-based
answer to iTunes) with the promise that video downloading would follow over the service by 2005. This has coincided with the
development and launch of a number of Walkman branded MP3 players and the flagship handheld multimedia device the PlayStation
Portable (PSP).
Launched in the UK in September 2005, the PSP allows the user to play games and watch films (amongst other functions) either from a
pre-packaged Universal Media Disc (UMD) bought at retail, or on a download to the Memory Stick. It is also possible to rip pre-bought
DVDs onto the Memory Stick, although there are arguably legal obstacles in this regard. Nevertheless, Sony had sold 185,000 PSPs in the
UK within the first week of release, making it the fastest selling games console ever according to official statistics. It is expected there
will have been 1m sold by Christmas 2005.
Film titles on UMD also did well. UMD made up one per cent of the UK's video retail market in the format's first month of availability.
Sony's proprietary format was launched in Europe on 19 September 2005 and designed for playback only. According to a British Video
Association (BVA) analysis of Official UK Charts Company (OCC) data, UMD contributed up to five per cent of total sales of some films
during September 2005. The top title on the format was 2003 release Underworld, which sold 7,487 units, followed by new release The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with 7,136 copies sold.
However, this has not prevented Sony from going further. The company has, according to a report by the New York Times, converted 500
movie titles for digital sell-through via its Sony Connect music website. According to conversations with a UK technology developer, which
is purporting to be developing Sony’s download service, the platform will launch Europe-wide in 2006.
As a sign of its intent, Sony has already launched short form video downloading through Sony Connect as well as dedicated PSP portals in
Japan and the US --- offering a small selection of movie previews, animated cartoons, entertainment, digests of TV dramas, music,
lifestyle programming and sport. Content is initially available at no cost. Launch of the sites coincided with the availability of a software
update for the PSP that added features required for the service. These new features include a Web browser and support for the MPEG4
AVC video codec and AAC audio codec in which the clips are encoded. Users will be able to access and download clips in two ways. The
first is directly from the PSP using the newly added Web browser and the already-present built-in wireless LAN adapter, the second is
download via PC.
Notably, the Sony PSP has a wide variety of peripherals, such as a personal video recorder (PVR) add-on and a 4Gb hard-disk adaptor,
that is bringing increasing functionality to the device. Moreover, PVR pioneer TiVo has made an enhancement to its current TiVoToGo
feature that will allow TiVo subscribers to easily transfer recorded television programming to their Apple iPod or Sony PSP handset. The
service includes an exclusive TiVo auto-sync feature that will allow subscribers to choose if they want new recordings of their favourite
Feasibility Study for a Digital Platform for the delivery of Independent UK films and Specialised films to the Home
UK Film Council © 2006
66